ZSL London Zoo - Zoo in London - Zoological Society of London (ZSL) Celebrate National Winnie-the-Pooh Day by discovering more about the real-life bear from ZSL London Zoo that inspired author A.A. Milne. zsllondonzoo Our adorable narrow-striped mongoose baby is sure to brighten #BlueMonday! zsllondonzoo No lie in for Jae Jae this morning! Happy #Caturday zsllondonzoo One of the Zoo’s most famous structures was designed by Lord Snowdon himself and today we're saddened by the news that he has passed away. Ralph Armond, Director General at ZSL, said: “Lord Snowdon will be sadly missed. He created a truly unique piece of architecture for ZSL London Zoo. He was inspired by the graceful movements of flying birds and conceived a pioneering aviary that looks almost weightless - like a bird. It is an iconic piece of architecture so we are proud to have something very special to remember him by.” zsllondonzoo Join us LIVE as keeper Amy tells us all about our vicunas! zsllondonzoo Ever wondered what happened on this day at the Zoo in 1828?

Well, now you can find out as volumes of the Zoo's fascinating daily occurrences have been made available to view online for the very first time. From animal births to special visitors, the daily records contain an amazing breadth of information that zoologists and historians alike have been using as an amazing resource. zsllondonzoo Meet the 'Skywalker' hoolock gibbon, a new species discovered in the rainforests of China. A team of scientists, led by Fan Peng-Fei from Sun Yat-sen University and including ZSL's Dr Samuel Turvey, used the force (and a comprehensive scientific study of gibbon genetics) to determine that the Skywalker is in fact a completely distinct species of gibbon. It was named Skywalker because the Chinese characters of its scientific name mean "Heaven's movement" and the primates spend their time high in the rainforest canopy, but also because the team are big fans of the Star Wars films. zsllondonzoo Fancy taking on a new challenge in 2017? Why not put yourself to the test with the ZSL Stampede.

Enjoy a 5k or 10k running route through the Zoo and Regent's Park all while raising money for precious wildlife around the world! zsllondonzoo Did you know that all clownfish are born male? The dominant male will change sex when the female of the school dies. zsllondonzoo Brand new for 2017, why not take on our Zoo to Zoo bike ride between London and Whipsnade! The wildest bike ride in the south east will see cyclists pushing their pedals for wildlife on Sunday the 2nd of July. The long-distance route will take in three counties along the journey, with cityscapes and countryside vistas to admire along the way. zsllondonzoo Trains to London Zoo - Nearest Station - Trainline Share this route Trains to London Zoo The nearest train station to London Zoo is London Euston . At Euston Rail Station you can take bus number 253 from bus stop G which goes to Camden High Street. From Camden High Street, you can either make a 15 minute walk to London Zoo or you can take bus number 274 towards Victoria Gate which will drop you outside the Zoo.

Alternatively, visitors can take the underground to Camden Town or Regent’s Park stations – both of which are within walking distance of London Zoo. Looking for the cheapest fare? Try our simple fare finder tool About London Zoo London Zoo is the world's oldest scientific zoo, opened in 1828 and made accessible to the public in 1847. It is located on the northern edge of Regent's Park and houses 756 species of animal. Enjoy the amazing wildlife and learn more about lemurs, tigers and komodo dragons (and penguins of course!). London Zoo ZSL London Zoo - Free entry ticket with The London Pass Attractions Nearby Watch live feedings, walk through Butterfly Paradise and "Meet the Monkeys" at London Zoo; a great family day out right in the centre of Regent's Park ZSL London Zoo has been educating and inspiring visitors since opening to the public in 1847. With over 750 incredible species, exciting and innovative exhibits it’s a great day out in the capital for all ages.

In the spring of 2016, Land of the Lions will be coming to ZSL London Zoo, providing state-of-the-art facilities for a breeding group of endangered Asiatic lions, of which only 400 remain in the wild. Giving millions of people the chance to get up-close to the big cats, visitors to Land of the Lions will be able to see just how closely humans and lions live in the Gir Forest, with tantalising glimpses of the lions’ habitat appearing throughout a bustling Indian ‘village’. Set in leafy Regent's Park amid heritage-listed buildings and beautiful gardens, ZSL London Zoo is an oasis in the heart of the capital. With over 750 amazing animal species to discover, as well as live shows and fantastic, immersive exhibits, this is an unmissable attraction. Visitors can go In with the Spiders in ZSL London Zoo’s BUGS exhibit, and experience Europe’s only walk through spider enclosure. Head down to England’s largest penguin pool at Penguin Beach and watch the Humboldt penguins dive, swim, frolic and feed, or step Into Africa and observe the elegance and grace of the giraffes from the viewing platform.

Move through lush forested pathways when Gorilla Kingdom brings the African rainforest to the heart of London. And younger visitors can explore Animal Adventure – home to meerkats, llamas and aardvarks in an immersive animal experience, designed for children, by children. Your ticket helps secure a future for endangered animals by directly contributing to ZSL’s Conservation programmes. Learn more about London Zoo in our Interview with a Zoo Keeper on our London Pass Blog. Note: Children aged 3-4 will be charged on entrance fee for London Zoo. How to get there: - Camden Town underground (Northern Line) - Regent's Park underground (Bakerloo Line) - Great Portland Street (Hammersmith and City Lines) See The: Full List Of Attractions Included "My wife and I have been to London twice before but our adult children were with us this time and we decided to get the London Pass with the transportation option. It was fantastic. We visited many wonderful sites with which we were already familiar, but we also went to many places just because we had the London Pass - the Royal Mews, Wimbledon, Handel's Home, and more.

These unexpected visits were so enjoyable!" Timothy from USA The London Eye Tickets Prices And 2 for 1 Voucher Discount Details Shopping Walk The Zoo is located in in Regents Park, one of the royal parks not far from Camden Town at the northern part of Central London. As the major zoo in London its a full size zoo with the full range of animals and birds you would expect. The zoo is a registered charity. ZSL London Zoo has almost 750 species of animal, from the smallest monkey to the tall giraffe. Like zoo's the world over the London Zoo has undergone a raft of changes to bring down the bars and allow visitors to get closer to an astonishing 750 species of animal. Penguin Beach is a firm favourite recreating a South American beach landscape in the heart of London, with stunning colonies of around 200 Macaroni and Humboldt penguins. Sightseeing In London There are also birds, butterflies, giraffes, zebras, and all other shapes and sizes of the world's creatures. With daily shows, live feeds and demonstrations as you would expect from a world class zoo.

The London Zoo - Logistical Overview Opening Times: - ZSL London Zoo is open from 10am every day of the year (except Christmas Day) with seasonal closing times between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. Last admittance is one hour before closing. Location: - The London Zoo is located to the north of the very centre of London where most attractions are. The London Zoo site is at the northern end of Regents Park, one of London's several very large royal parks. The zoo straddles the Regents Canal along which boat trips are available. You can walk along the canal to Camden Lock, one of London's most visited markets, especially for the youngsters. Madame Tussaud's is on the opposite side of Regents Park and Primrose Hill another area of parkland that extends seamlessly north of Regents Park has splendid views of the London skyline. Nearest Underground Station: - ZSL London Zoo is within walking distance of Camden Town (15mins) and Regent's Park (20 mins) stations. Camden Town is on the Northern Line, Regents Park (Bakerloo Line).

You can also get the 274 London bus from Baker Street Underground (Circle, District, Bakerloo, Metroplitan and Jubilee Line) to a stop outside the Zoo. Hop On, Hop Off Buses: - None of London's hop on, hop off sightseeing buses have stops at the London Zoo. You can get off at Baker Street (the stop for Madame Tussauds) and get the 274 London bus to the zoo or its a 20 minute walk across Regents Park. London Zoo Ticketing The London Zoo has a straight forward ticket offering with concessions for children, seniors and family tickets. You get about a 5% discount by buying tickets in advance on-line rather than paying on the day. Tickets in Winter, from November to mid February are around 20% cheaper than other months. Fast Track tickets allowing you to skip the entrance queues for instant access are available for which you pay around a 20% premium over standard entrance tickets. Buying direct from the London Zoo official web site (banner link below), offers the cheapest prices. We have been unable to find any discounter who can beat the London Zoo ticket outlet.

London Zoo & London's Attraction Passes Railways 2 for 1 Promotion - The railways 2 for 1 entrance promotion is valid at the London Zoo. However, the promotion is only for the walk-up tickets. The London Pass - The London Zoo is supported by London's most popular attraction pass. Popular London Attraction Fast Track Tickets Skip The Lines Tickets At ... London Eye - Amazing panoramic flight on the world's highest observation wheel The Shard - Tallest building in Western Europe with viewing of London from the top. St Paul's Cathedral - Cathedral of the Diocese of London famous dome & venue for royal weddings Westminster Abbey - Along with St Paul's England's main religious building Tower of London - Booking your ticket ahead of time you'll jump the queue at no extra cost. Madame Tussauds - See wax statues of the most famous people in the world London Dungeon - the creepiest attraction in town, the London Dungeon.

Hampton Court Palace - Henry VIII Medieval Palace set in vast grounds The London Zoo - World class zoo in the centre of London Copyright © 2002-2017 London Zoo Welcome to The Good Zoo Guide Online (goodzoos.com), the essential guide to the best zoos, wildlife parks and animal collections on the planet Now more than 200 Pages of Zoo Reviews and discussion - and growing with the help of Internet Zoo Critics from all around the world And while you're here - check out our world famous 'Zoo Noticeboard' Can you help zoos and animal lovers from around the world with their zoo enquiries? London Zoo Outer Circle, Regent's Park, London Telephone 020-7722 3333 How to Find it: The nearest underground is Camden Town - from which the zoo is a ten minute walk. Regent's Park station is further but the walk is more pleasant. Various busses By British Rail - the nearest station is Euston. Take the Underground (Northern Line) from Euston to Camden Town By Bus - No. 274 and C2. By car - Zoo's car park is on the Outer Circle of Regent's Park.

£5 for Zoo visitors. Pay and display parking also available on the Outer Circle Open: All year from 10.00 am Prices: This critique last updated: Jun 2009 Official Description London Zoo is a must for for a days out in London experience. For an amazing animal experience for all the family, visit Animal Adventure, ZSL London Zoo's new £2.3m exhibit. See what Animal Adventure is all about: Animal Adventure, the new children's zoo, allows children the chance to immerse themselves in the sights, sounds, smells and experiences of life in the animal kingdom This brand new family attraction lets children climb, tunnel, splash and touch in a special environment that brings fun and learning to life. Visitors to ZSL London Zoo will be able to see a Room with a Zoo and its inhabitant from Saturday 23rd May until Monday 25th May 2009. From Tuesday 26th May until Sunday 31st May, the public will have the chance to explore the inside of the exhibit and experience for themselves a Room with a Zoo.

More information on Room with a Zoo No reviews submitted - be the first GoodZoos.com Reviews The London Zoo is Britain’s best known zoo, it’s National zoo, and one of the most famous and prestigious collections in the world. It is the primary home of the Zoological Society of London, and it occupies thirty six acres of a Royal Park, less than two miles from the centre of the city of London. The Zoological Society of London was founded in 1826 at the instigation of its first president, Sir Stamford Raffles (who is rather better known as the founder of Singapore). Raffles obtained the land, and saw the first plans for the zoo, but in the same year that the Zoological Society was founded, he died, reportedly of apoplexy; so he never saw the scientific establishment that he had envisaged, for ‘teaching and elucidating zoology.’ That was left to his successor, the third Marquis of Lansdowne, who obtained a parcel of land from the Crown at Regent’s Park at a nominal rent, and who supervised the building of the first animal houses. The gardens opened in April 1828 to members of the Zoological Society.

The public were not to be admitted for almost two decades, but among the animals they might have seen before the turn of the century were such rarities as Arabian oryx, greater kudus, Indian and Sumatran rhinoceros, aye aye, the now extinct quagga (a species of zebra), and the equally extinct thylacine (a marsupial wolf). Among the zoo’s regular visitors was Charles Darwin, a fellow of the Zoological Society, from 1831. His particular fascination was the orang utan, the first ever seen in Europe. One of the great popular characters of the nineteenth century was Jumbo, an African bull elephant who came to the zoo as a baby and ended up as a six-ton cantankerous beast. Jumbo was so loved by Londoners of the time that there was a national outcry when the Zoo Council and Abraham Dee Bartlett, the zoo’s superintendent, sold him to Mr Bamum of Bamum and Bailey’s Circus. Jumbo sailed to the United States where hedrew huge crowds until his death in a train accident two years later. London Zoo benefitted from the sale to the tune of two thousand pounds.

One of the first architects at the zoo was Decimus Burton, an ambitious young man already famous for his designs of the Colosseum theatre and Marble Arch in London. Over the generations since, new buildings have come and gone, and today very little of Burton’s original zoo remains. The East Tunnel which links the north and south halves of the zoo under Prince Albert Road dates back to 1829, and the clock tower building, was Burton’s llama house in the 1830s. For the first sixty-five years, every tropical animal in Regent’s Park was kept indoors in the belief that they would not survive in the cold, fresh air of London. This was to change with the new century when Dr Peter Chalmers Mitchell, who was appointed secretary of the Society in 1902, set about a major reorganisation of the zoo’s buildings. Many of the animals came out into the open, and most of them thrived. This was a revolutionary new idea inspired by Hagenbeck of Hamburg Zoo, and it led to a new era of building and design which has firmly left its mark upon the park.

Today there is still a great feeling of history about London Zoo, lending the whole park a special ambiance quite fitting for this, the birthplace of British zoos. For decades the London Zoo has had no real equal in this country. Other zoos have opened, and flourished, but for generations there have been at least twice as many species here in the heart of London as there have been at any other British zoo. At the beginning of the 1990s there were almost 7,000 animals in the Royal Park. The nearest any other collection came to matching that figure was Chester Zoo with just under 3,500 animals; and despite the fact that 4,000 or so of London Zoo’s animals were fish or invertebrates (and most of those were ants), there was still a superabundance of wildlife that you would see in no other zoo: the wombat for example, or the Tasmanian devil, the long nosed potoroo, the grey ground cuscus, or the four eyed opossum - and these were only the marsupials.

Altogether on a day at London Zoo you might have seen representatives of nearly half the mammal species kept in British Zoos. The sheer size of the collection at London was part of the zoo’s appeal, but may also have been the root cause of the zoo’s financial problems. There may never be a collection of this size in Britain again. There is a recommended route to take you economically around the zoo, but it is worth buying and using the excellent guide book; otherwise you may soon find that the zoo seems much larger than you might expect, and it is difficult not to miss whole sections out. Most tours around London Zoo begin with the primates. The Sobell Pavilions, built for the apes and monkeys in 1972, are right in front of you as you come through the gates. This will also be your first introduction to the signs - another feature of the London Zoo that has no equal. Perhaps it is the influence of the great museums nearby; perhaps it is a spin-off from the education department that. plays host to sixty thousand children every year; or perhaps there is just a greater commitment to educate the public here than at any other zoo.

Whatever the reason, Regent’s Park seems to have a policy of putting a sign upon every available blank space, and you could easily spend a day simply reading your way around the zoo. Some zoo directors are sceptical about the value of interpretational signs. They doubt whether the average visitor will ever read more than a fraction of the information that a zoo could display. Maybe there is, a danger of this when every sign is a monotonous litany of gestation times, litter sizes, and diets - and that surely applies to the signs at many zoos; btit not at London. Here imagination has taken over, and nowhere are there two sets of signs the same, even in format. The signwriters have decided that we want to know what is interesting about the occupants of each enclosure, and that is what they have given us. So our tour around the Sobell Pavilions begins with a huge evolutionary tree showing our own relationship to the old and new world monkeys.

Then, as we proceed around, each section has a sign that announces its residents: ‘Spider Monkeys - The tail hangers’, reads one; ‘Squirrel Monkeys - sociable and chirpy’, ‘Gorillas - vegetarian gentle giants’, and ‘Macaques - the all-rounders’. The enclosures are all grass floored and well branched with a ceiling of girders to provide more climbing space. They are a little low, but seem well suited to the needs of most of the monkeys, which are kept here in large social groups. Indoors the dens are brick-built and fairly roomy with glass viewing windows. Nearly all the primates breed well here, and you may see several parents carrying young. The chimpanzees (‘Like us - noisy and showy’) spend more time swinging arm to arm than in many zoos which provide less three-dimensional space, but perhaps they would be noisier and showier if they had a little more room to rush around. The gorillas have the same outside pen and climbing roof as the monkeys; and maybe here the pavilion suffers from a slight uniformity of design - these huge apes looking rather uncomfortable in what is quite clearly a monkey cage.

A statue of Guy the gorilla stands alongside, climbed upon by countless children. It is a permanent reminder of the zoo’s best loved resident since Jumbo. All the apes are identified by photographs and names. Chimp faces vary almost as much as humans, and the photographs remind us that every animal is an individual, each with his, or her, own unique personality. The aquarium at London Zoo was built in 1924, and it is still the largest in the country. Two hundred thousand gallons of fresh water and sea water circulate through its hundred exhibition tanks. Twice a year sea water from the Bay of Biscay is brought in the ballast tanks of ships to top up the water in circulation. The hall is long, with most of the light coming from the tanks themselves. Perhaps the best feature is the seawater hall where a three thousand gallon display tank holds a whole variety of tropical marine fish and invertebrates. Next door is the reptile house, with a huge collection of snakes and lizards on display. Many of the signs there feature venom as their point of interest, and one of the many snakes on display is the carpet viper, responsible (so the sign tells us) for several thousand deaths a year in Africa.

Outside again, the elephant and rhino pavilion is good from the visitor’s point of view, but maybe somewhat lacking in space for the animals. To make up for this the elephants are widely exercised out and about in the zoo, to the clear delight of visitors, and one hopes of the elephants too. One recent resident of this building was Ben, a northern white rhino who was flown in 1986 to join the only other captive rhinos of his race at Dvur Kralove in Czechoslovakia, a move that looks likely to be helpful in saving this subspecies from extinction. The newest residents (at the time of writing) are Rosie, an adorable black rhino who was born at the zoo in 1989, and Jos, a young male black rhino who arrived from Dvur Kralove in November 1990. The jackass penguins have a famous and fascinating pool, dating back to 1934 and designed by the architect Lubetkin, with a network of concrete ramps and bridges.

So often the children’s corner in a zoo is no more than an afterthought where a few rabbits and a few goats supposedly represent animals with a special appeal to children; but at few zoos will you see children enjoying a children’s zoo so much as at London, where they are offered a whole range of animals to stroke, including calves, piglets, lambs, rabbits and donkeys. The nineteenth-century reptile house was converted into a tropical bird house in 1927, and it now houses a whole variety of birds in aviaries around the walls. One inhabitant is the bell bird, which makes the loudest of all bird calls, like a hammer striking on an anvil. When the male is in full throat it is quite deafening to stand too close. The essential Victorian flavour of this building is captured in the interpretational signs. For these the zoo has drawn from its archives of nineteenth century drawings, prints and paintings, and has combined them with up to date information in the style of a Victorian naturalist’s notebook. The cats at Regent’s Park are housed at the East corner of the zoo in well planted enclosures, faced with tent-like erections of steel square fencing.

Signs here educate us on the fur trade, teeth and claws, spots, cubs and kittens, and invite us to compare our physical skills with those of the cat family. Did you know, for instance, that a leopard can leap twice as high as an Olympic high jumper? In the open parkland of the southern side of the zoo are open wildfowl ponds, parrots, sealions and gibbons, carnel rides, and a meet-the animal show under a big open-air tarpaulin. Two tunnels lead under the road to the north side of the zoo. Here you will find the high, walk-through, Snowdon Aviary, the giraffe, zebras, deer and cattle house where you might also see vicuna, kudu and okapi, the insect house, and finally the one building which most visitors remember more than any other - the Charles Clore Pavilion. Known by keepers simply as ‘The Clore’, this building houses the society’s small mammal collection - one of the most impressive in the world. The ground floor is borne to daylight creatures like marmosets and tamarins; but it is the basement where the real magic lies.

Here is the moonlight world’ where large eyed nocturnal creatures like the Tasmanian devil, jerboas, douroucoulis, casiraguas, and fruit bats abound in enclosures that are skilful recreations of their natural wild surroundings. The Clore is a fascinating place indeed, and once your eyes have become used to the dim artificial moonlight you can spend a long time in this mysterious world among the rarely seen creatures of the night. A new attraction at the zoo in 1991 were a pair of koalas, Mije and Billi, the first seen in Britain for almost 80 years. They were housed in a large but rather stark circular room in what used to be the old orang house, and here they would climb contentedly on a wooden climbing, frame against the painted backdrop of a eucalyptus forest. Sadly Mije died in November 1991. Koalas are notoriously difficult to keep in zoos, primarily because they rely on just a single food source, the leaves of eucalyptus.

The original koalas of London, almost a century ago, were fed on eucalyptus cough pastilles, but today the zoo buys regular quantities of fresh branches from a supplier in Cornwall. The branches are inserted into holes in the climbing frame, to make browsing, a more natural process. For many years it has been the policy of successive Australian governments not to allow wildlife exports of any kind, although an exception was made in 1990 for some endangered Leadbetter’s opossums sent to London Zoo. London’s koalas therefore came from San Diego Zoo, where they were born. Pandas have been a feature of London Zoo for more than five decades. The first London Zoo panda this century was Ming, one of four pandas who arrived in 1938 and who featured in propaganda to boost morale during the war. Twenty years later, in 1958, came Chi-Chi. She was originally destined for an American zoo, but at the time Washington had banned all trade with Communist China. Chi-Chi was branded ‘communist goods’ and was refused entry to the United States.

The Zoological Society of London had previously ruled that they would not encourage the collection of wild pandas, in the interests of conservation. But since it was pointed out that Chi-Chi had already been collected, her purchase (with assistance from Granada TV) was approved. She at once became the scene-stealing, star attraction of London Zoo, and remained the best loved zoo animal in Britain until her death. As the only giant panda in the west, she was the inspiration behind Peter Scott’s design for a symbol for the World Wildlife Fund. She was greatly pampered, and often indulged with chocolates by visitors. In the late 1960s her fruitless liaison with Moscow Zoo’s An-An made regular front page news. When she died in July 1972 she was widely mourned, but the vacuum at the zoo was soon filled by Ching-Ching and Chia-Chia who arrived in September 1974, a gift to Edward Heath from the Government of China. Once again, however, all of the technology and best intentions of the zoo failed to persuade the pandas to produce any offspring.

Ching-Ching needed almost constant medical attention, and after her death, Chia-Chia departed, in 1988, on a breeding loan to Mexico City Zoo, which has a good record of panda breeding. Once again London Zoo was without a panda, and it felt the absence profoundly. For the first time in decades the zoo had no real star. There was hope that the arrival of the koalas would fill the void, but somehow they failed to do so. So negotiations that had begun with the Chinese in 1988 for the loan of another panda grew more urgent. At about the time that the future of the zoo began to be questioned, the imminent arrival of Ming-Ming was announced. She arrived in the autumn of 1991 and was followed by a male, Bao Bao, from Berlin Zoo. They occupy the original panda cages in the Sobell pavilions. It is not perhaps the most imaginative home for a panda. The panda cages were originally designed for monkeys. But they will offer the zoo the opportunity to create a star once more, if the public still has affection for the very lovable, and still rarely seen, giant panda.

And if they do succeed in niating, during the few days in the spring when Ming-Ming will be on heat, then who can guess what effect the arrival of a baby panda might have upon the future and the financial fortunes of London Zoo. Throughout its history, London Zoo has rarely been out of the news. In 1991 the zoo once again dominated the front pages after reports that the Department of the Environment was to order its closure. ‘Animals face slaughter’ read the headlines, and leader columns were drawn into debating what has become the perennial controversy of the rights and wrongs of zoos as places of entertainment. Not for the first time in its history, London Zoo was faced with the dilemma of hugely mounting costs against a background of fairly stagnant visitor numbers. The reason behind the threat of closure seemed to be the simple failure of the zoo to balance its books. This was never going to be an easy exercise. London Zoo is a zoo of enormous variety and complexity. As well as its huge collection of animals it also houses the Institute of Zoology, a body of around 100 research scientists, funded in part through the Universities Finance Council.

Their work currently covers seventy or more projects from the examination of rhino urine, to the insemination of pandas. But to run such a large and diverse zoo has its cost. In this case the cost was the £40 million required to cover the zoo’s backlog of repairs, and to secure its financial future. An early indication that a threat might be looming for London Zoo had come in 1990 when the Zoological Society announced its plans for some major changes in the collection. These were expected to include a huge reduction in the number of species along with the departure of many of the larger animals to Whipsnade. For a while it looked is if these changes could prove to be sufficient to bring running costs down to manageable proportions. But the plans were clearly not enough to stave off a crisis. The fact is that, apart from a government endowment of £10 million made to the zoo in 1988, London Zoo is expected to be self financing, unlike, for example, Kew Gardens or the national museums and galleries. This may have been a realistic attitude in the 1950s and 60s but not, it would seem, in the 1990s.

The zoo survived successions of crises. But survival is still a struggle. Quite simply, there seems to be a straightforward decision to make. If London Zoo is to continue in its present form, as a huge National collection of seven hundred or more species, then more money will have to be found - and essentially this may mean that the taxpayer will have to contribute in some form or another. Other countries, it can be argued, support their prominent collections with money from the National purse. However, for the present at least it would seem that the government lacks any intention to bail the zoo out of its crisis; and the zoo itself seems to be reconciled to the fact that it cannot continue in its present form. But perhaps that might he no bad thing. If public (or private) money is not forthcoming, and if London Zoo could come to terms with redefining the collection into a smaller, simpler, cheaper zoo, then it could surely continue to survive on the gate receipts of the million and a quarter visitors who come every year. After all there are several good zoos that occupy no more land, with far smaller gates, that seem to do quite nicely thank you.

Jersey Zoo (with less than a quarter of the number of visitors) is perhaps the best example. It could represent a rather attractive model for a future role for London Zoo. Imagine London becoming associated with the type of international species rescue that Gerald Durrell has shown to be possible. This great and popular zoo would have a platform second to none for capturing the public imagination with the tasks it would undertake. That great reptile house could devote its efforts to the dozens of island reptiles on the edge of extinction. Most of the birds, so many of them non-breeders would go; but perhaps the much criticised (and in need of repair) Snowdon Aviary could house colonies of endangered primates - maybe done langurs or lion tailed maeaques, or drills. The Clore could specialise in half a dozen or so of the most critically endangered bits and small mammals; there would be schemes to link conservation work in the countries of origin with captive breeding at the zoo - plenty here to keep the Institute of Zoology busy well into the next century. The City of London is full of venues for an exciting day out. There are galleries, museums, waxworks, and the Tower.

But consider: a baby Arabian oryx is rarer than a da Vinci painting or a Henry Moore sculpture; and what creation of man can compare with nature’s artistry in the face of a mandrill or the plumage of a flamingo? One word of warning however: don’t plan too full an itinerary on the day you visit the zoo. You may find it takes up much of your day, leaving you too footsore for very much else. Featured A really good day out! Tickets aren't cheap but there is more than enough in the zoo to keep you busy for a whole day. A great selection of animal enclosures including an aquarium and reptile house. My personal highlights were the Tiger feeding, the Penguin show and the Gorillas. Food and Drinks are expensive but thats to be expected at such a big London attraction. I would recommend the Sblended milkshake bar, selling animal themed milkshakes with flavours such as 'Lion Bars', 'Penguin Bars' and 'Malteasers (Malt-Ant-Eaters)' If you leave early enough you should definitely consider leaving via the boat ride which leaves from the north side of the zoo, it can be very busy but well worth it! Helpful?

Niomi Harris Tastemaker Featured A lovely day out for the whole family. I went with my boyfriend for my birthday and we had an amazing time. At £27 each, it was a tad pricey, but it's not so bad considering there's so much to see and you'll be in there for hours- give yourself at least 5 if you want to see everything. Highlights include the 'Into Africa' section (where the giraffes seemed more than happy to pose for pictures!) the walk-through Lemur enclosure and the penguin beach. Disappointingly, there were no Lion's as a new exhibit is being built for 2016 and if you're unlucky enough to catch the Tigers after they've had their lunch, they'll probably be asleep! If the weather is good, this is the perfect place to while away a sunny day- but be sure to wear comfy shoes! Helpful? Laura B Tastemaker Featured I'm not entirely sure how I feel about zoos - especially this one as I don't feel the large animals have enough space to move. Am not convinced the tigers could even get to full pace in their enclosure which saddens me (or certainly not for more than a couple of paces).

Also, no lions there at present - their enclosure is being rebuilt to open in 2016. Saw some animals pacing but the place is well maintained and would take a full day if you take your time and have a leisurely lunch. Feels relatively small but takes more time than you think. Helpful? GeorgeX Tastemaker Featured A 36-acre zoo, in the north side of Regent Park that will keep you busy a whole day and you will really have fun either going with friends or having kids with you. Grab a free map in the entrance (ticket price quite fair for the size of the zoo) and explore the different organized areas; there is a gorilla kingdom, a tiger territory,a lions land, a penguins beach, a bugs building, an aquirium, the butterflies land, into the africa section, meerkats, monkeys and so many more. In many instances you can even walk and be in a breath distance from many of these animals. Really well organised zoo, with lots of animals and lots of daily events/activities to spend your day. Helpful?

Ann R Featured I haven't been to London Zoo since they kept the big cats in small cages so I was pleasantly surprised to find how much it had changed. The Lions now have a wonderful enclosure called The Land of the Lions and it is themed as an indian village. The three walkways give you a good chance of seeing the pride but are not intrusive to the animals. Another revamped enclosure is Tiger Territory and we were lucky enough to see the new baby tiger cubs on our visit. In fact most of the exhibits seem to have been updated with maybe the exception of the Aquarium and the Insect House (but then how fussy are fish and insects about their environment?). The penguins now have a much nicer enclosure and its design allows visitors to see them both out and in the water. It is a little pricey to get into the Zoo but there is enough there to keep a family busy all day and there are many interactive things for children to do. Well worth a visit! Helpful? Lizzie W Tastemaker Featured This review is for both the zoo and the sunset safari combined! I have been to nicer zoos with bigger better enclosures and also more animals however for a zoo in the middle of London - this place is pretty good!

Sunset safari offers visitors the time to wander round the zoo early evening which meant it was a lot quieter. They also had lots of food stalls and music playing which added to the atmosphere. I have been to the zoo on a weekend before and sunset safari is a much nicer time to visit! Aided by sunny weather and a few ciders we had a fab time at the zoo. Highlights at the moment are the new lemur enclosure, the other monkey enclosure and the gorgeous tigers. Unfortunately the baby gorilla (5months old) has an early bed time so the gorilla kingdom was closed :( and the lions have been relocated for the summer! Will be back next year for sure! Helpful? Kishma S Tastemaker Featured A cheap day out this aint, but it is a full day out and if you come prepared with food and drinks and navigate the exit through the gift shop that every parent loves then you don't have to take out a second mortgage to have a nice day out. A lot has changed since I last visted a few years ago. The attraction I was most looking forward too was the Gir Lion exhibit.

The exhibit didn't disappoint but it cost a lot of money to depict an Indian village as accurately as possible so it should be impressive. It is a very well done attraction that even has a a train platform and Indian snack stall. Shame the lions don't care and were asleep in the corner. The bug house was a new experience too with an open rainforest section where you can get closer to some very scary cage-less spiders. There's even a mirror next to one so you can take a spider selfie and show how cool you are on Facebook/Instagram/snapchat/whatever. The main issue with the zoo, aside from being at the mercy of the British weather, is that animals don't care if you've been looking forward to your visit or if it's your daughter's birthday, if they don't want to cooperate then they wont. No amount of staring into the enclosure trying to will the animals to appear will work (I tried). As long as your enthusiasm is tempered with the knowledge that you may actually see very few animals and may end up buying an overpriced piece of tat then you'll have a great day.* *Wear sensible shoes. The zoo is huge and it's a healthy walk to the closest tube stations too. Helpful?

Hollibakes Tastemaker Featured I'm both for and against this kinda thing. I mean, the conservation work that London Zoo does is applaudable, but seeing some of the enclosures the animals are kept in really tugs at the heart strings. I will say though that having visited a couple of weeks ago, it is a lot better than it was years ago when I went last, but I still think that some improvements can be made, especially with the ticket price being close to £30 per person. Obvs if you book online before hand you can save yourself some dollar. I actually drove to London Zoo this time instead of using public transport and it took me pretty much the same amount of time from South East London that it would getting the train, tube and walking from Camden. There is a car park you can use, but this is almost £15 to use for the day, and if you leave your car there over night you have to pay £70!! I opted to go for one of the hundreds of pay and display bays outside the zoo entrance.

Costing £2.20 per hour, you can stay for a maximum of four hours here, nearly cutting the price you'd pay if you were using the zoo's own car park. This is a pleasant day out whether you have children or not, but with quite a lot of walking to do, be prepared for the little ones to get somewhat restless! Lastly, having been again to mainly see the bran new Land of the Lions, I have to praise London Zoo on the work they have done here. It really feels like you've been transported over to Sasan Gir in India! You embark on an amazing adventure through the towns, seeing the different market stalls selling bits and bobs as well as the local train station. There are also little lodges I believe you can hire out overnight so you'll be able to wake up to the sound of lion roars! Helpful? Sarah R tastemaker Featured A day out in the Zoo is such a good alternative to your usual weekend activities. Embrace your inner child, be giddy with excitement and spend some time on fresh air. Well, as fresh as it can be in London.

Zoo is very spacious, so allow yourself at least few hours to enjoy it and walk around and it probably still won’t be long enough to see everything. There is so much to see! I was amazed when I realised how close you can get to animals, especially lemurs and little monkeys. Zoo organizes a range of daily activities, so you can observe feeding of the tigers or go to Penguin Beach, where you watch penguins swimming under water and listen to presenter explaining penguins’ lives. Land of Lions is an exciting new addition which is another reason to visit the Zoo. As an animal lover I am fully aware that animals in Zoos are kept in a small space, in unnatural environment….However, I feel that eventhough that is the case, being an animal in London Zoo isn’t too bad! Observing the staff, they have so much dedication and love for animals, and animals really looked well-kept and taken care off. I am tempted to get ZSL Membership. Definitely looking forward to sunnier and warmer days when I plan to stay here even longer Helpful? Tom Bruce Tastemaker Featured London Animal Prison is, unequivocally, the best place to pay almost £30 see wild animals in their unnatural habitat.

Trapped in tiny enclosures a fraction of the size of the territory that they would normally roam, the menagerie of vibrant, extraordinary creatures lounge around waiting for food to be thrown at them by minimum wage workers, because there is literally nothing else to do! Waited on hand and foot, these magnificent specimens - which run the gamut of evolutionary possibility, from dung beetles to gorillas to giraffes (and a few other sorts too) - can be photographed interacting with one another in a way which is totally unrepresentative of how they might behave in the environment that they have adapted, over millions of years, to survive in. In-fighting, health problems, and depression are common, though trained veterinarians are on hand to alleviate symptoms well enough to meet animal welfare standards and keep the money coming in. But these animals are given food daily so they don’t have to starve like in the jungle, although if it's given to a predator then it's usually already dead, which means there is no chance for it to practice its play and hunting skills. Furthermore, there are visitor information signs telling the public how endangered these animals are, and that the world is full of pollution now, so London Animal Prison's incarceration of wildlife is completely fine.

Preferable, even! If the animals could speak, they'd have nothing but praise for the place and the wardens who run it. Although nobody has conducted an official survey, the vast majority of London Animal Prison's population would probably state their utmost gratitude for the millions of visitors they receive each year. Having so many admirers must be a wonderful thing. Usually, a total lack of keeper supervision means that your kids can rap on glass panels - a dominant feature of most animal inmate's cells - for hours on end while you document the event on a smart phone. But when the savage monkey/tiger/sloth strikes back against the bulletproof, three inch thick glass, you'll be glad it's there, and you'll be right to condemn the bestial behaviour of the savages that tried to lay a paw on your boy and made him cry. "They deserve to be locked up!", you would be correct in saying. Watching the tigers drag themselves from their sleeping dens to gnaw on chunks of mangled flesh is a stimulating experience, and really gets the bloodlust going.

Their majesty and prowess in walking slowly over to a hunk of meat is awesome to behold, even in their lethargic state, which has been brought on by enduring years of captivity and the same boring routine day after day, for as long as they have lived; they are in a true ‘winter of the mind’, and expert zookeepers ensure that the only release will be a slow death drawn out agonisingly through the use of stringent medical procedures and medication plans that are not in the least bit in keeping with the 'realistic', 'natural' conditions that a tiger should be in, but which London Animal Prison insists it is. It is basically nature, only safer! No doubt you and your family will be hungry after witnessing the beasts at feast...so why not head on to one of London Animal Prison's visitor-only canteens, where dead animals are served for incredibly low prices. You will find to your delight that the value of life is much, much less when the living creature isn't endangered and there are billions of them all about the place. Tuna fish, pigs, chickens, and cows are all on the menu - none of those are in London Animal Prison though, possibly because they'd be boring to watch.

But because they are out of sight they are out of mind! And remember, the animals you eat were not meant to be in a zoo or cared for by vets - they were bred to be eaten, so stop worrying about it! Besides, they spend their miserable little lives in much larger facilities with all of their friends and don't have to share with any other species like the reptiles and monkeys and birds at London Animal Prison do. It's fine. It's all fine. Helpful? MandyGo Tastemaker Featured London Zoo is an iconic attraction in the capital. It's pretty cool when you think that at your desk in Soho, you're less than 3 miles from a Tiger. No one can deny, it's a great day out. I was even lucky enough to go to Zoo Lates when that ran – but can understand why that quickly went away, as having a party in the complex isn't really fair on the animals. They need their time out too! The place is pretty big, so expect a good 5 hour + walk to really get the most out of seeing the animals. They are well looked after and ZSL staff are very informative and trained, which gives you a bit of comfort.

Having said that, having a Zoo in the capital is nostalgic and pretty cool. And I'm very grateful. As long as some of my money goes to the welfare of the animals, I'm happy to spend the ticket price. If you are one of those people that deem it a tad pricey, there are certain parts of Regents Park you can head to and still get a glimpse of the animals – Giraffes, Zebras, Penguins, Llamas, Deer and WartHog to name a few! Just donate some money to an animal charity if you go for this free option... Helpful? Beki Lacy Featured I love London Zoo! I came here a little while back and I'm passionate about animals so love going to any kind of zoo. What I really love about London Zoo is seeing how good the staff there are, they all clearly love their jobs and really care for each and every animal in their zoo -to me, this is a very important part of a zoo and for animals in captivity. Slightly on the pricey side for a ticket but I don't mind paying when I know the money is going to a good cause, helping the animals. Helpful?

Question: In which park would you find 'London Zoo'?
Answer: Regent's Park